Fifth Third Bank has been the target of a long run of lawsuits and regulatory enforcement actions covering unauthorized accounts, discriminatory auto lending, wrongful vehicle repossessions, FHA mortgage fraud, accounting misstatements, deceptive credit card marketing, variable annuity sales abuses, telemarketing privacy violations, overdraft fees, and employee misclassification. Since 2000, the Cincinnati-based regional bank and its subsidiaries have paid more than $265 million in penalties across over 40 regulatory and legal matters, according to tracking data compiled by Good Jobs First.1Good Jobs First. Violation Tracker – Fifth Third Bancorp The sections below walk through the major Fifth Third Bank lawsuits and settlements that account for most of that total.
Unauthorized “Fake” Accounts
In March 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Fifth Third in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleging the bank had opened deposit and credit card accounts without customers’ consent, transferred funds into unauthorized accounts, enrolled consumers in online banking they never requested, and activated lines of credit without permission.2CFPB. CFPB Files Suit Against Fifth Third for Allegedly Opening Unauthorized Accounts The agency said the bank had known since at least 2008 that employees were opening unauthorized accounts, and that the misconduct continued through at least 2016, driven by cross-sell sales goals that tied employee pay and job retention to hitting targets.
The suit drew comparisons to the Wells Fargo fake-accounts scandal, which involved roughly two million unauthorized accounts.3HousingWire. Fifth Third Facing Its Own Fake Account Fiasco Fifth Third called the lawsuit “unnecessary and unwarranted,” saying it had identified and resolved the issue years earlier. The bank put the number at fewer than 1,100 accounts out of more than 10 million opened during the relevant period, with less than $30,000 in improper charges waived or reimbursed.4Fifth Third Bank. Fifth Third Public FAQ
After the case moved to the Southern District of Ohio, the CFPB filed an amended complaint in June 2021 citing violations of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Truth in Lending Act, and the Truth in Savings Act. On July 18, 2024, the court entered a stipulated judgment requiring a $15 million civil money penalty, redress to affected consumers, and a prohibition on sales goals that encourage opening unauthorized accounts.5CFPB. CFPB Enforcement Action – Fifth Third Bank
Force-Placed Auto Insurance and Wrongful Repossessions
One day earlier, on July 9, 2024, the CFPB issued a separate consent order against Fifth Third over its collateral protection insurance program for auto loans. The agency found that between 2011 and 2019 the bank force-placed or maintained unnecessary, duplicative insurance on more than 37,000 occasions, with over half of those policies charged to borrowers who already had their own coverage or had secured insurance within 30 days of a prior policy lapsing.6CFPB. CFPB Enforcement Action – Fifth Third Bank FPI
Those charges inflated monthly payments and pushed borrowers into delinquency. About 1,005 vehicles were repossessed where the delinquency was triggered by the bank’s own erroneous insurance charges. Borrowers collectively paid more than $12.7 million in premiums and fees for policies later canceled, and refunds were applied to loan balances rather than returned directly to consumers. The CFPB also found the bank had sent misleading “right-to-cure” letters with incorrect payment amounts, causing roughly 2,000 consumers to pay inaccurate figures and still face delinquency.7CFPB. CFPB Consent Order – Fifth Third Bank FPI
The order required a $5 million civil penalty, redress to approximately 35,000 harmed consumers, direct refunds instead of credits to loan balances, and a new compliance plan before any resumption of a force-placed insurance program.6CFPB. CFPB Enforcement Action – Fifth Third Bank FPI Fifth Third had voluntarily ended the program in January 2019.8Washington Post. CFPB Fifth Third Bank
Auto Lending Discrimination
In September 2015, the Department of Justice and the CFPB jointly announced an $18 million settlement resolving allegations that Fifth Third had discriminated against African American and Hispanic auto loan borrowers in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.9U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Department and CFPB Reach Settlement to Resolve Auto Lending Discrimination The agencies said the bank’s indirect auto lending program let car dealers mark up interest rates by as much as 2.5 percentage points, and that this discretion produced higher rates for minority borrowers than for similarly qualified white borrowers regardless of creditworthiness. Affected borrowers paid more than $200 extra over the life of their loans on average.10CFPB. CFPB Takes Action Against Fifth Third Bank for Auto Lending Discrimination
Fifth Third agreed to cap dealer markups at 1.25 percentage points for loans of 60 months or fewer and 1 percentage point for longer loans, improve monitoring and compliance, and report regularly to both agencies.11U.S. Department of Justice. United States v. Fifth Third Bank (S.D. Ohio) An administrator was appointed to locate and distribute compensation to identified victims.
Deceptive Credit Card Add-On Products
Also in September 2015, the CFPB issued a consent order over the marketing of a “Debt Protection” credit card add-on sold between 2007 and February 2013. The agency found telemarketers enrolled customers and charged fees without their knowledge, sometimes casting sales calls as “risk-free trials” or information requests and treating a borrower’s verification of their birth date as consent to purchase.12CFPB. CFPB Consent Order – Fifth Third Bank Add-On Products The bank also sent “fulfillment kits” to customers enrolled in an enhanced version of the product that contained terms for the original product, producing incorrect disclosures about costs, benefits, and exclusions.
Fifth Third was ordered to provide approximately $3 million in redress to roughly 24,500 customers and pay a $500,000 civil penalty. It was barred from marketing or selling the Debt Protection product and prohibited from offering similar add-ons without regulatory approval of a new compliance plan.13CFPB. CFPB Takes Action Against Fifth Third Bank for Auto Lending Discrimination and Illegal Credit Card Practices
FHA Mortgage Fraud Settlement
In October 2015, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced an $85 million settlement under the False Claims Act and FIRREA. The government alleged that Fifth Third, as a HUD Direct Endorsement Lender, certified approximately 1,400 residential mortgage loans as eligible for FHA insurance despite having identified them as materially defective during post-closing quality control reviews, and that the bank failed to report those defects to HUD within the required 60-day window between 2003 and 2013.14U.S. Department of Justice. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces $85 Million Settlement With Fifth Third Bancorp
Of the defective loans, 519 defaulted, causing substantial losses to HUD. Fifth Third paid roughly $85 million to cover those losses, made a separate $2 million administrative payment, and agreed to indemnify HUD for potential future losses on the remaining 914 defective loans. The bank admitted to the reporting failures, reformed its quality control program, and terminated the employees responsible.14U.S. Department of Justice. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces $85 Million Settlement With Fifth Third Bancorp The investigation followed in part a whistleblower complaint filed under seal, though Fifth Third had also made voluntary disclosures to the government in 2012 and 2014.15HousingWire. Fifth Third to Pay $85 Million for Faulty FHA Mortgages
SEC Enforcement
Commercial Real Estate Loan Classification
In December 2013, the SEC charged Fifth Third Bancorp and its former CFO, Daniel Poston, over the improper classification of commercial real estate loans during the third quarter of 2008. The SEC found that once the bank formed the intent to sell troubled loans, they should have been reclassified from “held for investment” to “held for sale” at fair value, and that failure to do so obscured the bank’s financial picture. Proper accounting would have increased its pretax loss for that quarter by 132 percent.16SEC. SEC Press Release 2013-255 Fifth Third paid a $6.5 million penalty, and Poston paid $100,000 and was suspended from practicing as an accountant before the SEC for at least one year. Both settled without admitting or denying the findings.
Off-Channel Communications
In September 2023, the SEC ordered Fifth Third Securities to pay an $8 million civil penalty over widespread use of personal devices for business communications. The agency found that from at least January 2019, employees including senior leadership, managing directors, and desk heads routinely used text messages and other unapproved channels to conduct business, and the firm failed to preserve the “substantial majority” of those communications.17SEC. In the Matter of Fifth Third Securities, Inc. The firm was also censured and required to retain an independent compliance consultant.
FINRA Variable Annuity Sanctions
In May 2018, FINRA imposed $6 million in sanctions on Fifth Third Securities, consisting of a $4 million fine and roughly $2 million in customer restitution, for recommending variable annuity exchanges without a reasonable basis for believing they were suitable. In a sample of exchanges approved between 2013 and 2015, approximately 77 percent contained misstatements or omissions about costs or benefits, yet firm principals approved roughly 92 percent of all exchange applications they reviewed.18InvestmentNews. FINRA Fines Fifth Third Securities $4 Million for Variable Annuity Violations FINRA noted this was its second significant enforcement action against the firm over variable annuities; following a 2009 settlement, Fifth Third had failed for over four years to fully implement an independent consultant’s recommended surveillance procedures.
Telemarketing Privacy Class Action
In 2022, Fifth Third, along with payment processing companies Vantiv and National Processing Company, agreed to a $50 million class action settlement resolving claims that telemarketing calls to California merchants were illegally recorded without the participants’ knowledge, in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. The underlying 2016 lawsuit alleged that two independent sales organizations making calls on behalf of the defendants recorded nearly 1.2 million phone calls to an estimated 313,215 individuals between May 2014 and July 2016.19American Banker. Fifth Third Part of $50 Million Settlement in Telemarketing Suit The settlement was described as the largest by dollar amount under that statute at the time, with class members receiving cash payments per covered call.
Overdraft Fee Litigation
Fifth Third has been sued more than once over overdraft practices. In the earlier case, Schulte v. Fifth Third Bank, the bank agreed to a $9.5 million settlement over allegations that it posted debit card and ATM transactions in non-chronological order to maximize overdraft fees, covering a class period from October 2004 through July 2010.20Top Class Actions. Fifth Third Bank Overdraft Fee Settlement In October 2023, a new class action was filed in federal court in Cincinnati, alleging the bank routinely charged overdraft fees in situations where plaintiffs argue those fees should not have been imposed.21Cincinnati Business Courier. Fifth Third Faces Class Action Suit Over Overdraft Fees
Employee Misclassification and Overtime
Fifth Third has resolved multiple collective actions alleging it improperly classified employees as exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. In Swigart v. Fifth Third Bank, 366 mortgage loan officers filed FLSA opt-in consent forms alleging the bank treated them as exempt while paying on a draw-plus-commissions basis; the case settled for $4 million and received final court approval in July 2014.22CaseMine. Swigart v. Fifth Third Bank A separate collective action in the Western District of Pennsylvania, brought by customer service managers, settled for $3.25 million in February 2015.23Law360. Fifth Third Strikes $3M Deal in Worker Misclassification Case
Tricolor Holdings Investor Suit
In February 2026, investors holding over $230 million in notes issued by Tricolor Holdings, a bankrupt subprime auto lender, sued Fifth Third along with JPMorgan Chase and Barclays, alleging the banks ignored warning signs of fraud while serving as major lenders and securitizers of Tricolor’s auto loans. The investors accused the banks of “sticking their heads in the sand” while audits in 2022 and 2024 revealed inaccurate loan receivables and falsified cash flows.24Reuters. JPMorgan, Barclays, Fifth Third Defeat Lawsuit Over Missed Red Flags at Tricolor On June 10, 2026, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff dismissed the suit after the banks argued the investors’ claims amounted to negligence rather than intent to defraud.
Where Things Stand
Fifth Third has continued to expand through this litigation history. On January 6, 2026, Comerica shareholders approved a $10.9 billion sale of the company to Fifth Third Bancorp.25Reuters. Fifth Third Bancorp Company Page The Federal Reserve approved the merger on January 13, 2026, after the OCC had approved the subsidiary bank merger in December 2025, and the Department of Justice advised the Fed that the deal would not have a “significantly adverse effect on competition.”26Federal Reserve. Order Approving the Merger of Comerica Into Fifth Third A separate lawsuit challenging the deal on behalf of Comerica shareholders, alleging breaches of fiduciary duty by Comerica’s directors, was pending in the Delaware Court of Chancery as of the Federal Reserve’s approval; no wrongdoing had been adjudicated.